How to Build A Man
by candyflavordlies
Summary: The ways in which love and friendship can mend a broken heart, heal a tortured soul and build a man anew.
1. Give, and I Shall Take

**How to Build A Man: Give, And I Shall Take**

 **10th Doctor/Rose**

* * *

If he holds her hand too often, it's only because she hasn't told him no.

And if he reaches for her when he feels himself slipping, it's only because she let's him.

If he hugs her for too long, it's only because he needs to.

And if he kisses her to save her life, it isn't because he has to.

"Are you alright?" Rose wraps her arm around his, pulling herself snug into his side.

The Doctor smiles down at her, full of so much love he wonders if she can tell just how much he wants to kiss her in this moment. He looks towards the horizon, ostensibly to watch night falling around them, but most surely because he's afraid he'll give himself away.

"I've seen a billion sunsets on a million planets. Seen a dozen moons rise over a single horizon."

"And you just keep waiting for it to get old, to lose its charm." He looks down at her sharply but she's staring out into the deep lavender sky. "But it doesn't."

He looks away again before she can catch him staring. Slowly and deliberately, he slides his fingers between hers and squeezes gently.

"No, it doesn't."


	2. Discovery

**How to Build A Man: Discovery**

She doesn't know, and he has no intention of telling her but Rose keeps finding his missing pieces. It sounds silly, of course, what with him being centuries too old to misplace anything, yet here he is, pondering over things he'd written off a very long time ago.

His hands, for instance. He sees them everyday. He touches and he tinkers and he angrily whacks at the TARDIS, so he knows that they're there. But his hands are different in hers. They're warm and alive and desperately clinging to her every chance he gets. They learn the feel of bedazzled denim and the burn of human skin. They memorize the shudder of muscle and skin over bone and the thrum of one pulse point on a far too delicate wrist. They remember how to play instruments and how to teach. His hands are her hands now, destined to do her bidding.

She's found his sense of adventure, though he can't tell you where he lost it. The universe, in all its terrifying glory, is just open space to her, undiscovered days waiting for them to charge in and do whatever it is they've been doing. He hasn't had a chance to define it, not properly.

Rassilon knows she's found his hearts and, despite his most valiant efforts, somehow smuggled them out of his body. Because those are hers too. That all too present thumping follows her, cresting and receding as she does, longing and reaching out until _he_ reaches out and that thumping finds a mate in her.

She has found his feet, those cowardly things made for running, and turned them into grace and purpose.

She has found his smile, made it into something worth doing, something that feels absolutely fantastic because she smiles for him, with him, _because_ of him and he likes that. Very much.

The Doctor thinks of all these things as he stands against a wall and watches another man invite her company. She's polite, if a bit flirty in his opinion and he wonders, not for the first time, if he'll end up bringing this one along too. Adam was bad enough and only the universe knows who or what Jack was liable to catch tonight.

The Doctor blinks and then Rose is beside him, sipping from a silver glass and rolling her eyes at the frankly gaudy displays of masculinity taking place around them. With men far outnumbering women on this planet, the preening and posturing is outrageous, borderline ridiculous and quickly wearing thin.

"Thought you said this was a party? More like a parade, if you ask me. What are they even going to do with all that muscle? Most of them can barely move. Well, that and the feathered helmets. And capes made out of animal skins." Rose wrinkles her nose.

That might have been his tipping point.

"Fancy a waltz?" He says it nonchalantly, or at least he thinks he does, so as not to making himself too obvious. Nevertheless, her eyebrows nearly hit her hairline. She glances to her left and right, as if there could be anyone else he's talking to.

"I beg your pardon?" The Doctor rolls his eyes, a little put out by her reaction.

"Could just say 'no'. I'm old enough to take a bit of rejection."

"Oh, no no no! You're not backing out of this!" She laces her fingers through his, a welcomed modification to their usual hand...clasping ritual. He refuses to call is hand holding because he's a centuries old Time Lord, not some teenager. "Ha! If I didn't know any better Doctor," Rose pauses to adjust his hand on her back, "I'd say you actually _like_ dancing." She lets out an exaggerated gasp that dissolves into laughter.

He can't help but laugh with her.

"Never said otherwise. Now watch where you're going. I've got a reputation to uphold."

"World's stiffest dance partner? Loosen up a bit, yeah?"

"Rose," He begins, in what she has affectionately named his lecturing voice, "The Waltz is a traditionally..."

"I swear, if you start in on a history lesson..."

"Fine but I'm not dancing that salacious abomination they're teaching on 21st century earth."

Rose snorts at him, which he finds incredibly endearing. Which he then finds uncomfortably sentimental.

"Where'd you learn all of this anyway?"

"Movies mostly. Had a few classes here and there. And I practiced with mum."

"That must've been a blast."

"Shut it. She's not that bad, mind we couldn't get some of the jumps and dips and the like since we're pretty much the same size."

"Well, then, Rose Tyler. You're in for a treat. I just happen to be stronger than your average Jackie Tyler."

"Oh yeah? Think you can manage?"

He spins her away, just for a moment. Before she knows what's happening, his hands are framing her waist and she is weightless as he dances them across the room. Rose tries to hide her excitement but it's no use. She's beaming like an idiot and he's smiling back at her like the sun rises in her eyes. "Impressive."

"See, that's what I've been trying to tell you."


End file.
